Equal Access Clinic Network

The Equal Access Clinic is a network of student-run free clinics that strives to:

“Provide Quality Comprehensive Healthcare For All”

Our vision is to improve the physical, mental and social well-being of all, by enhancing access to high-quality, comprehensive, patient-centered care and by facilitating community-level action.

The Equal Access Clinic Network is devoted to the key tenet of our mission: “To Provide Quality Comprehensive Healthcare For All.” Recent events surrounding police brutality fueled by systemic racism have sparked justified, nationwide outrage, and we want to be abundantly clear in our stance against all forms of bias and prejudice. Racial and social inequities are directly tied with disparities in health outcomes. Most recently these inequalities have been exemplified by differences in mortality rates seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is clear that the medical community must act to diminish social inequalities and help heal our communities. 

We are committed to furthering our mission by introducing tangible solutions to decrease bias in the care we provide. Physician and student volunteers will receive training in implicit and explicit bias and will be encouraged to report instances of bias. Our patients deserve better, and volunteers whose actions demonstrate bias will not be invited to return to Equal Access clinic sites.

In the coming weeks, we hope to provide a space to discuss explicit and implicit racism in healthcare and to address our own unconscious biases. We encourage open dialogue with the Gainesville and Alachua communities about actions that we can take to engage ourselves and the public in meaningful solutions.